2015 in Films

Format adapted from Charles François, who I still hope will one day rediscover his cinephilia and start hanging out with myself and the Skandies crew again. It’s been ten years since he last used it and I hereby declare it in the public domain.

Combine the first two columns for a list of films released in 2015, and the last two columns for films seen in 2015. Ordering is preferential when ratings are identical.

Seen Previously
Movies I saw in 2014 {or before} that were released in the U.S. in 2015. Films not yet released but currently scheduled for this year are indicated by a (→).
Seen in 2015
Movies I saw shortly before, during or after their 2015 U.S. run. Asterisks (*) indicate films seen prior to their actual release. TV-only "runs" (arbitrarily deemed eligible) get a (†).
To Be Released
Movies I saw in 2015 which are still awaiting a U.S. release. Those known to have lined up distribution are indicated by a (→). Production {year} is listed if film is more than 2 years old.

A For All Time

The Duke of Burgundy (Strickland) 91

A- Event

*Sicario (Villeneuve) 83
Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong) 82

B+/A- Near Great

Magic Mike XXL (Jacobs) 81
Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller) 80

B+ Must See

*The Forbidden Room (Maddin) 77
*Carol (Haynes) 76
The Witch: A New England Folktale (Eggers) 75
It Follows (Mitchell) 74
*Anomalisa (Kaufman, Johnson) 73

B/B+ Warmly Recommended

*The Martian (Scott) 72
Breathe (Laurent) 72
Tu dors Nicole (Lafleur) 71
Approaching the Elephant (Wilder) 71
Heaven Knows What (Safdies) 70
*Christmas, Again (Poekel) 70
*Mustang (Ergüven) 70

B Recommended

My Golden Days (Desplechin) 69
Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom (Afineevsky) 69
The Gift (Edgerton) 69
*Cheatin' (Plympton) 69
*The Mend (Magary) 69
*The Overnight (Brice) 68
Güeros (Ruizpalacios) 68
*Court (Tamhane) 68
Buzzard (Potrykus) 68
Our Loved Ones (Émond) 68
Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas) 67
Evolution (Hadzihalilovic) 67
Bone Tomahawk (Zahler) 67
Green Room (Saulnier) 67
'71 (Demange) 67
The Hateful Eight (Tarantino) 67
*Girlhood (Sciamma) 66
*Inside Out (Docter) 66
*James White (Mond) 66
Rams (Hákonarson) 66
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Heller) 66
*45 Years (Haigh) 66
Bridge of Spies (Spielberg) 66
*Far From the Madding Crowd (Vinterberg) 66
*Heart of a Dog (Anderson) 65
The Salvation (Levring) 65
Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation (McQuarrie) 65
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Elkabetzes) 65
Remember (Egoyan) 65
*Dope (Famuyiwa) 65
The Lobster (Lanthimos) 65
*Yakuza Apocalypse (Miike) 64
A Month in Thailand {2012} (Negoescu) 64
*3½ Minutes, Ten Bullets (Silver) 64
Eastern Boys (Campillo) 64
*Phoenix (Petzold) 64
*Spotlight (McCarthy) 64
Far From Men (Oelhoffen) 64

B-/B Recommended with Mild Reservations

In the Name of My Daughter (Téchiné) 63
*What We Do in the Shadows (Clement, Waititi) 63
*Gabriel (Howe) 63
Star Wars: Episode VII -- The Force Awakens (Abrams) 63
Jafar Panahi's Taxi (Panahi) 63
*Youth (Sorrentino) 63
Cobain: Montage of Heck (Morgen) 63
About Elly (Farhadi) {2009}62
Steve Jobs (Boyle) 62
The Wonders (Rohrwacher) 62
When Evening Falls on Bucharest, or Metabolism (Porumboiu) 62
*Tangerine (Baker) 62
*In Jackson Heights (Wiseman) 62
Wild Tales (Szifrón) 62
*Son of Saul (Nemes) 61
Invention (Lewis) 61
Creed (Coogler) 61
Amy (Kapadia) 61
*The Fool (Bykov) 61
*The Humbling (Levinson) 61
*The Nightmare (Ascher) 61

B- Recommended with Strong Reservations

The Measure of a Man (Brizé) 60
*What We Did on Our Holiday (Hamilton, Jenkin) 60
*Mississippi Grind (Boden, Fleck) 60
*The Revenant (G. Iñárritu) 60
Predestination (Spierigs) 60
Blood of My Blood (Bellocchio) 60
Grandma (Weitz) 60
Our Little Sister (Kore-eda) 60
*Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story (Almereyda) 59
The Walk (Zemeckis) 59
Timbuktu (Sissako) 59
*The Little Death (Lawson) 59
99 Homes (Bahrani) 59
*Tangerines (Urushadze) 59
*Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead (Tirola) 59
*Irrational Man (Allen) 58
Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong) 58
*Where to Invade Next. (Moore) 58
*5 Flights Up (Loncraine) 58
*She's Lost Control (Marquardt) 58
Louder Than Bombs (Trier) 58
Coming Home (Zhang) 58
Sisters (Moore) 58
Finders Keepers (Carberry, Tweel) 57
*Advantageous (Phang) 57
*Seymour: An Introduction (Hawke) 57
*Mistress America (Baumbach) 57
Goodnight Mommy (Franz, Fiala) 57
*The Yes Men Are Revolting (Nix, The Yes Men) 57
Joy (Russell) 56
*Office (To) 56
*The D Train (Paul, Mogel) 56
Furious Seven (Wan) 56
Love at First Fight (Cailley) 56
*Black Mass (Cooper) 56
*Cartel Land (Heineman) 56
*Cop Car (Watts) 55
One Floor Below (Muntean) 55
Ned Rifle (Hartley) 55
Li'l Quinquin (Dumont) 55
*Faults (Stearns) 55
The Wakhan Front (Cogitore) 55
*Man From Reno (Boyle) 55
*Hitchcock/Truffaut (Jones) 55

C+/B- On the Fence, Leaning Forward

*Break Point (Karas) 54
*The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared (Herngen) 54
Mommy (Dolan) 54
*Jackie & Ryan (Mann) 54
Ex Machina (Garland) 54
*Call Me Lucky (Goldthwait) 54
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Andersson) 54
*The Assassin (Hou) 54
*Partisan (Kleiman) 54
*A Wolf at the Door (Coimbra) 53
*Room (Abrahamson) 53
*Listen to Me Marlon (Riley) 53
La Sapienza (Green) 53
Crimson Peak (Del Toro) 53
*Match (Belber) 53
The New Girlfriend (Ozon) 53
Straight Outta Compton (Gray) 53
*Man Up (Palmer) 53
Valley of Love (Nicloux) 53
*Slow West (Maclean) 53
Unfriended (Gabriadze) 52
*Arabian Nights: Volume Three, The Enchanted One (Gomes) 52
*The Second Mother (Muylaert) 52
*Félix & Meira (Giroux) 52
*Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (Zellner) 52
Les cowboys (Bidegain) 52
Trap (Mendoza) 52
*Queen & Country (Boorman) 52
The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer) 52
Alléluia (Du Welz) 52

C+ Take It or Leave It

Mon roi (Maïwenn) 51
*These Final Hours (Hilditch) 51
Spring (Benson, Moorhead) 51
*Hyena (Johnson) 51
*5 to 7 (Levin) 51
*Meru (Chin, Vasarhelyi) 51
*Brooklyn (Crowley) 51
*The Summer of Sangaile (Kavaïté) 51
The Big Short (McKay) 51
The Missing Girl (Calvo) 50
*Paradise Lost (Di Stefano) 50
Intruders (Noh) 50
Stray Dog (Granik) 50
Dheepan (Audiard) 50
Digging Up the Marrow (Green) 50
*Closer to the Moon (Caranfil) 50
The End of the Tour (Ponsoldt) 50
*The Connection (Jimenez) 50
Beloved Sisters (Graf) 50
Tale of Tales (Garrone) 49
*Accidental Love (Greene) 49
Afternoon (Tsai) 49
Two Shots Fired (Rejtman) 49
*Welcome to Me (Piven) 49
*Our Brand Is Crisis (Green) 49
Ricki and The Flash (Demme) 49
Ted 2 (MacFarlane) 49
*Macbeth (Kurzel) 49
*Little Accidents (Colangelo) 49
Saint Laurent (Bonello) 49
Manglehorn (Green) 48
*Digging for Fire (Swanberg) 48
The Treasure (Porumboiu) 48
*Creep (Brice) 48
Chevalier (Tsangari) 48
*10,000 KM (Marquet-Marcet) 48
*Cymbeline (Almereyda) 48
*Futuro Beach (Aïnouz) 47
Mountains May Depart (Jia) 47
*The Russian Woodpecker (Gracia) 47
Maggie's Plan (Miller) 47
Testament of Youth (Kent) 47
*Son of a Gun (Avery) 47
*24 Days (Arcady) 47
Chronic (Franco) 46
Ingrid Bergman - In Her Own Words (Björkman) 46
The Hunting Ground (Dick) 46
Danny Collins (Fogelman) 46
*Trainwreck (Apatow) 46
Eden (Hansen-Løve) 46
*Live From New York! (Nguyen) 46

C/C+ On the Fence, Leaning Backward

*Love (Noé) 45
*Bluebird (Edmands) 45
Amour fou (Hausner) 45
*Echoes of War (Senes) 45
*Stinking Heaven (Silver) 45
Suffragette (Gavron) 45
Terminator Genisys (Taylor) 45
Misunderstood (Argento) 45
*Z for Zachariah (Zobel) 44
In the Shadow of Women (Garrel) 44
Bleak Street (Ripstein) 44
*Human Capital (Virzì) 44
*People Places Things (Strouse) 44
*Victor Frankenstein (McGuigan) 44
Chi-Raq (Lee) 44
*The Film Critic (Guerschuny) 44
Marguerite & Julien (Donzelli) 44
*The 11th Hour (Morgenthaler) 43
Sunset Song (Davies) 43
*The Kindergarten Teacher (Lapid) 43
*Alex of Venice (Messina) 43
The 33 (Riggen) 43
*Marie's Story (Améris) 43
*Madame Bovary (Barthes) 43
Tom at the Farm (Dolan) 43

C Pass

While We're Young (Baumbach) 42
Black Souls (Munzi) 42
X/Y (Williams) 42
*Results (Bujalski) 42
*Effie Gray (Laxton) 42
A Walk in the Woods (Kwapis) 42
*Theeb (Abu Nowar) 42
Jauja (Alonso) 41
*Arabian Nights: Volume Two, The Desolate One (Gomes) 41
Mia Madre (Moretti) 41
The Nightingale (Muyl) 41
The Gunman (Morel) 41
*Unexpected (K. Swanberg) 41
Jimmy's Hall (Loach) 41
*October Gale (Nadda) 41
*Concussion (Landesman) 40
*Dirty Weekend (LaBute) 40
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (Lawrence) 40
*Growing Up and Other Lies (Grodsky, Jacobs) 40
*Five Star (Miller) 40
*Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (Roache-Turner) 40
*Song One (Barker-Froyland) 40
*Hungry Hearts (Costanzo) 40
The Visit (Shyamalan) 39
*Strangerland (Farrant) 39
The Princess of France (Piñeiro) 39
*3 Hearts (Jacquot) 39
*Nasty Baby (Silva) 38
White God (Mundruzcó) 38
*Shelter (Bettany) 38
*Boulevard (Montiel) 38
*Victoria (Schipper) 37
*Kill Me Three Times (Stenders) 37
The Sea of Trees (Van Sant) 37

C- Ugh

*Don Verdean (Hess) 36
*The Riot Club (Scherfig) 36
*All the Wilderness (Johnson) 36
Blackhat (Mann) 35
Maps to the Stars (Cronenberg) 35
*Love, Rosie (Ditter) 34
He Named Me Malala (Guggenheim) 34
Arabian Nights: Volume One, The Restless One (Gomes) 33
*An Open Secret (Berg) 33
Time out of Mind (Moverman) 33
Queen of Earth (Perry) 32
*Still Life (Pasolini) 32
Horse Money (Costa) 31
*The Forger (Martin) 30
Good Kill (Niccol) 28

D+ Double-Ugh

*Marfa Girl (Clark) 27
*In Stereo (Rodriguez) 26
*Broken Horses (Chopra) 25
Hard to Be a God (German) 24
Journey to the Shore (Kurosawa) 22
No Home Movie (Akerman) 21
*Blackbird (Polk) 19

D Bomb

Enter the Dangerous Mind (Delara, Teran) 17
*Home Sweet Hell (Burns) 12

F Burn the Negative

Walk-outs Channel Surfing

Backcountry (MacDonald)
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (Nelson)
Blind (Vogt)
Boy and the World (Abreu)
Chlorine (Sanfelice)
The Chosen Ones (Pablos)
*The Creation of Meaning (Rapisarda Casanova)
Dégradé (Nassers)
Democrats (Nielsson)
Dior and I (Tcheng)
Disorder (Wincour)
Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock & Roll (Pirozzi)
Downriver (Scicluna)
88:88 (Medina)
Embrace of the Serpent (Guerra)
Entertainment (Alverson)
Everybody in Our Family {2012} (Jude)
February (Perkins)
52 Tuesdays (Hyde)
Fish & Cat (Mokri)
Fort Buchanan (Crotty)
Fort Tilden (Bliss, Rogers)
Frenzy (Alper)
Gangs of Wasseypur (Kashyap) {2012}
Haemoo (Shim)
*The Hallow (Hardy)
A Hard Day (Kim)
I Believe in Unicorns (Meyerhoff)
I'll See You in My Dreams (Haley)
Infinitely Polar Bear (Forbes)
*The Japanese Dog (Jurgiu)
K (Ap Richard, Erdenibulag)
Küf {2012} (Aydin)
Lamb (Zeleke)
Land and Shade (Augusto Acevedo)
The Lesson (Grozeva, Valchanov)
Los hongos (Ruiz Navia)
Lost and Beautiful (Marcello)
Love & Mercy (Pohlad)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Gomez-Rejon)
Meet Me in Montenegro (Holdridge, Saasen)
Mercuriales (Vernier)
Metro Manila (Ellis)
*Mr. Six (Guan)
Mouton (Pistone, Deroo)
My Skinny Sister (Lenken)
The Other Side (Minervini)
Our Last Tango (Kral)
Parabellum (Rinner)
The Peanuts Movie (Martino)
Revenge of the Mekons (Angio)
The Seven Five (Russell)
The Shameless (Oh)
Shaun The Sheep Movie (Burton, Starzak)
Sleeping With Other People (Headland)
Something, Anything (Harrill)
Songs From the North (Yoo)
Stockholm, Pennsylvania (Beckwith)
The Strongest Man (Riches)
Take Me to the River (Sobel)
T(error) (Cabral, Sutcliffe)
Thursday Till Sunday {2012} (Sotomayor)
*Tired Moonlight (West)
The Tribe (Slaboshpytskiy)
Valley of Saints (Syeed)
Violet (Devos)
Xenia (Koutras)
Zoom (Morelli)

Incomplete Mishap/Bad Timing

Southbound (Various) [emergency phone call informing me that someone had broken into my house]